AUSTIN — Just as Rick Perry is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year, along comes Kinky Friedman.

The Texas governor stumbled badly in his bid for the presidency. His full-bore advocacy of David Dewhurst for the Senate hit a brick wall of voter disapproval. Perry was booed when he took the stage at this summer’s Texas Republican convention in Fort Worth.

Friedman, the singer-satirist and unsuccessful candidate for governor in 2006, says Perry is vulnerable to a challenge if he runs for re-election in two years.

And Kinky knows just the challenger to beat him — Kinky Friedman.

“I don’t think Perry is going to win, and if he thinks he is, he’s very mistaken,” declared Friedman, who says he’s seriously considering another run.

Friedman knows he has detractors. He knows that when some people hear he might run for governor again, they envision a rerun of a glitzy but ill-fated bid loaded with one-liners and light on position papers. But he also senses a gathering sentiment that people believe Perry has embarrassed the state and has rewarded wealthy interests at the expense of cash-strapped Texans worried about their health care and their children’s schools.

“Perry has created a state that’s first in business climate and 49th in education. What’s wrong with that picture?” Friedman said.

This time, Friedman said he would run as a Democrat, not an independent, and as a more serious and substantive candidate. These days, the cosmic cowboy is reading Churchill.

“The main thing is to defuse the idea of being a comedian or even being an independent. I’m an independent-thinking Democrat and I’ve been a Democrat way further than most of my detractors,” he said. “It would have to be what you show the Democrats during that primary, and if you can show them a different side of Kinky Friedman, and it’s definitely there. Most of us realize the real comedian is already in the Governor’s Mansion.”

After Perry quit his gaffe-strewn campaign, a poll found his job-approval rating falling to only 40 percent in Texas, lower at the time than that of President Barack Obama. Perry insiders say he’s confident he still has plenty of political capital.

He threw himself behind Dewhurst’s GOP Senate bid, loaning him his political team and effectively putting himself on the ballot. The Texas governor urged voters to reward his political partner for the accomplishments of the Perry years.

Dewhurst lost by nearly 14 points.

The other day, legendary country singer Ray Price played a concert in Kerrville. He invited Friedman back to his bus.

“He said be an old-fashioned, old-time Democrat and a happy warrior,” he said. “And if you could win that nomination, which may be problematical, but if you could, you’d really be in the catbird seat and the Democrats would end this 25-year drought. You’d be a standard-bearer rather than a pallbearer.”

Some hard-core Democrats remain miffed at Friedman for his 2006 run, contending he cost the party’s nominee, former Houston congressman Chris Bell, votes as he tried to beat a vulnerable Perry. When Friedman ran for agriculture commissioner as a Democrat two years ago, he lost the primary to Hank Gilbert by nearly 5 points.

And even if he won the nomination, he’d face an uphill battle. Democrats have not won statewide office in Texas since 1994. The last Democrat elected governor was Ann Richards in 1990.

But Friedman said the virtue of his candidacy would be its cross-party appeal not only to Democrats but also independents and Ron Paul Republicans — if they saw, around the vivid persona of his cigar and black hat, a serious commitment to issues they care about.

“It would have to be a well-thought-out idea. I would go with what Bill Clinton told me before the last race — find three areas that are really close to your heart, that you really believe in. Research those heavily and drive those home. Don’t get distracted.”

Last year, when Perry launched his presidential bid, Friedman wrote a piece for The Daily Beast in which he said the governor was “not only a good sport, he is a good, kindhearted man, and he once sat in on drums with ZZ Top.” Friedman said it was not an endorsement, but a way to be “gracious to a guy who’s been my nemesis.”

Life is pretty good these days, Friedman says. He has collaborated with Willie Nelson on an upcoming new book, Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die. He has a tequila brand and a line of cigars, and he just finished a tour of New England and Canada.

But everywhere he goes — airports, hotels, shops, performances, the street, Friedman says — people who ought to be in Perry’s base are encouraging him to run. And, he says, he might.

“The big question is going to be, ‘Are you serious?’” he said. “And I am serious.”

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About Wayne Slater

Wayne Slater is senior political writer for The Dallas Morning News. He was previously Austin bureau chief for The News and has covered Texas and national politics for 20 years.

Slater has reported on a variety of political and public figures, including Pope John Paul II, and presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and both George Bushes. He traveled for 16 months full-time covering the 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush and reported on his 2004 re-election race. In his two decades of following Texas politics, he has covered the administrations of Texas Govs. Bill Clements, Ann Richards, George W. Bush and Rick Perry.

His appearances on national media programs include NBC’s Meet the Press, CNN, ABC’s Nightline and Good Morning America, PBS’s Frontline, C-Span, National Public Radio, MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann and Hardball with Chris Matthews and Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor. He was also featured in a film documentary about the 2000 Bush presidential campaign, Journeys with George, which appeared on HBO.

Slater is also the co-author of two books on Texas political guru Karl Rove Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential and The Architect: Karl Rove and the Dream of Absolute Power.